Rabbi Beaten in Ukraine on Rosh Hashanah Passes Away

Rabbi Mendel Deitsch, who was found badly beaten in the Zhitomir, Ukraine, central train station on Rosh Hashanah earlier this year and was then airlifted to Israel by emergency medical transport, has passed away.

Rabbi Deitsch was found bleeding and unconscious after being robbed and beaten by what was reported locally as “a group of drunks.” The motive was theft, not anti-Semitism.

Rabbi Deitsch underwent emergency surgery in Zhitomir while his family in Israel urgently worked with the Israeli government and emergency services organizations in Yerushalayim to arrange the medical airlift. He had been treated at the Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan but passed away over Shabbos.

Rabbi Deitsch had been active in strengthening Jewish life in the former Soviet Union for many years, and was a central organizer of hospitality and programming at the kever of the Baal Hatanya in Haditch, Ukraine.